Isolated Blurt Thread

[NaokoSmith]

Thank God! Banning Piglet from her laptop, the tv and the X Box until 9 am has resulted in her lying in this morning instead of getting up at some awful early hour! First day of the school holidays, and I can chill out. (Stupid manager having tried to phone me to harass me a bit more before he retires but now it's the weekend and I know he will be too lazy to provide my feedback - in writing as requested only three times - til Monday, so I can relax till then).

What strange weather. Yesterday was a grey sky and a kind of heavy stillness to the air, like one of those French films which show flat grassy landscapes and people riding horses and looking meaningfully at each other, and which are shot in such pure shades of grey that you almost think they are in colour. Then at night it got heavy and still, and in the early hours the thunderstorm broke. As we are on the coast, it went on for a while. It's passed over now and there are just the rivers of rain running off the camber of the roads.

Maybe it will be too wet to wear my wedge heeled sandals into town. We are going to a Gamelan workshop! I learnt Gamelan years ago, when my flatmate cajoled me along to his class. I really love it, but it's not the sort of thing you can get out on a Friday afternoon and have a little tootle on!

 

[Handley_Page]

Thank God! Banning Piglet from her laptop, the tv and the X Box until 9 am has resulted in her lying in this morning instead of getting up at some awful early hour!

We are going to a Gamelan workshop! I learnt Gamelan years ago, when my flatmate cajoled me along to his class. I really love it, but it's not the sort of thing you can get out on a Friday afternoon and have a little tootle on!

Keep banging those gongs, girl.

 

[NaokoSmith]

Keep banging those gongs, girl.

Now, now, this is a family workshop I'm going to.

 

[Handley_Page]

Now, now, this is a family workshop I'm going to.

I thought that the word Gamellan was a rank among the Time Lords.

 

[NaokoSmith]

My sympathy and empathy, Naoko.
I'm sorry I can't help with your current difficulties (unless, of course, you want me to hire you at my college), but I might be able to share a real cup of tea with you in September - It looks like I'll be conferencing within train distance.

Boo Hoo, I was so distracted I didn't even reply to your kind offer, Tio. I wish I could come and work with you! You already gave me practical as well as emotional support, kindly offering a reference for my funding application.

And I will definitely take you up on tea!

I thought that the word Gamellan was a rank among the Time Lords.

It sure was a peaceful activity, we really enjoyed it and mean to go and join classes in September. I'm sure advanced Time Lords play the gamelan as a means of soothing savage beasts of the universe.


Blurt:
The wifi is dropping in and out here, AGAIN. We are supposed to have some super powerful broadband hip size, or whatever it's called. Yet it's always tuning in and out - possibly in protest at being used to download Wild Child and other chick flix for Piglet.

 

[McKenna]

All I can give you is this gentle heart;
And I forgive you if it rips your world apart.
All I can say dear, is take me to your bed-
Just let me stay here and rest my aching head.

 

[TxRad]

All I can give you is this gentle heart;
And I forgive you if it rips your world apart.
All I can say dear, is take me to your bed-
Just let me stay here and rest my aching head.

McKenna.... (Flyingtacklehuggs)

Where ya been me love?

How've ya been?

 

[McKenna]

McKenna.... (Flyingtacklehuggs)

Where ya been me love?

How've ya been?

Wandering.

 

[TxRad]

Wandering.

I'd watch the rocks running around barefooted.

I've missed ya.

 

[Handley_Page]

I'd watch the rocks running around barefooted.

I've missed ya.

Ain't we all ?

 

[NaokoSmith]

All I can give you is this gentle heart;
And I forgive you if it rips your world apart.
All I can say dear, is take me to your bed-
Just let me stay here and rest my aching head.

 

[Handley_Page]

It's bloody 'orrible feeling less than 100% on a beautiful morning.
I got cramp!

 

[NaokoSmith]

It's bloody 'orrible feeling less than 100% on a beautiful morning.
I got cramp!

Oh dear! Move the stricken limb about gently so it works off.


(Never mind what I've got. Everything but cramp! Acksherly ... I have cramps too, somewhere I can't move gently about. )

 

[oggbashan]

My car problems continue to irritate me.

One Volvo is waiting for an estimate for repair. The other, repaired one, is now stalling when warm but I need it to go to a funeral 100 miles away on Friday. At present I can't trust it. I used it to take a daughter to hire a van to move her belongings. After she had left in the hire van, My Volvo wouldn't start. I adjourned to the nearby supermarket to have a coffee, and it reluctantly started when I returned, only to stall as I stopped outside my house.

The vehicle I borrowed from my mechanic while he was in Canada wouldn't start when I needed it. He retrieved it today - after an hour's work, he can't start it either!

I have yet another vehicle parked in front of my house - the property of the deceased. It needs an official roadworthiness test (MOT) but the widow hasn't decided what to do with it. She doesn't drive. I'm stuck with it at present.

The only roadworthy, reliable vehicle is my wife's car but a round trip of 200 miles to the funeral in that will be very painful for my back...

 

[PennLady]

Our car was working fine. Then Mr. Penn and PennBoy went to the mall on Sunday and on the way back, the car developed an odd smell. We took it to the garage and it's now fixed. What's another $500? Sigh.

 

[Handley_Page]

Our car was working fine. Then Mr. Penn and PennBoy went to the mall on Sunday and on the way back, the car developed an odd smell. We took it to the garage and it's now fixed. What's another $500? Sigh.

~Has it got one of those strange particulate filters ?
They can cause real havoc.

 

[oggbashan]

I've been using my ancient DIY skills on the Volvo.

I think I have traced the problem to a couple of loose connections. I'm off for a test drive. If I'm offline for hours I've had to call the Automobile Association - I might as well get some value out of their expensive membership charges.

 

[JagFarlane]

Good hike yesterday but certainly woke up stiff and sore.

 

[PennLady]

~Has it got one of those strange particulate filters ?
They can cause real havoc.

I have no idea; what I don't know about cars would fill several books. I didn't get the whole thing, but there were two problems. One, a bad sensor (?) and two, a fuel injection issue; there was too much gasoline in the engine. Both problems were fixed and we have the car back. I'll say this, our service garage is courteous and quick.

 

[Dianthus]

I can definitely attest to the side-effects of this medication: headache, loss of taste and smell, strange metallic taste in the mouth and (extreme) irritability.

 

[oggbashan]

I've been using my ancient DIY skills on the Volvo.

I think I have traced the problem to a couple of loose connections. I'm off for a test drive. If I'm offline for hours I've had to call the Automobile Association - I might as well get some value out of their expensive membership charges.

Started beautifully when cold and hot.

Then died completely on a 70mph major road. I called the Automobile Association, but the Police arrived first and coned off a lane. The Police were not happy with the AA's estimated attendance time of 80 minutes! They phoned the AA's local contractor for recovery who arrived in 20 minutes, annoyed because the AA had sent them an email with NO details of my location.

The tailback was only 2 miles...

When the recovery truck arrived - the Volvo started. When they unloaded it - the Volvo started.

An 'intermittent' fault?

 

[Handley_Page]

I've been using my ancient DIY skills on the Volvo.

I think I have traced the problem to a couple of loose connections. I'm off for a test drive. If I'm offline for hours I've had to call the Automobile Association - I might as well get some value out of their expensive membership charges.

Started beautifully when cold and hot.

Then died completely on a 70mph major road. I called the Automobile Association, but the Police arrived first and coned off a lane. The Police were not happy with the AA's estimated attendance time of 80 minutes! They phoned the AA's local contractor for recovery who arrived in 20 minutes, annoyed because the AA had sent them an email with NO details of my location.

The tailback was only 2 miles...

When the recovery truck arrived - the Volvo started. When they unloaded it - the Volvo started.

An 'intermittent' fault?

Oh, they can be a regular nuisance. It's even worse on a piece of Radio Equipment.

 

[NaokoSmith]

I can definitely attest to the side-effects of this medication: headache, loss of taste and smell, strange metallic taste in the mouth and (extreme) irritability.

Ugh.

Sometimes I think I am suffering from extreme irritability and maybe it's *whisper* The Change - as medical professionals call it . But then I realise it's that I live with and have to work for a BUNCH OF IDIOTS! and all feels right with the world again.

 

[NaokoSmith]

I really came on to post in here, cuz I know Ogg and HP get a big larf out of hearing about my managers. But unusually for me, I got distracted by flirting in some of the other threads.

So ... after five weeks , and on the last day he is in work, my manager finally wrote to give me feedback on why I have not been made appointable to teach a module on a subject in which I have considerable published research expertise and lots of specific teaching experience. He also added that although he is away at a conference and on leave, he would be really really happy to talk to me any time about the feedback - which given he knows as well as I do that it doesn't matter a bat's poo what he said in the feedback, his decision to make me unappointable will not be overturned, is just so kind of him, isn't it!

In fact, so gaspingly ridiculous is his feedback that the HR officer looking into my case wrote quite kindly - although not of course letting anything such as 'what a pile of bat poo' slip. They are normally very cold and mean in written communications so I was a li'l bit touched - about as far as you can be when you know they are not going to do anything to acksherly help you cuz the Procedures Must Be Adhered To even when they show that the whole of management is an Ass(hat).

OK, the reason given is that I couldn't explain properly how evidence works in relation to power/inequality.

Well, I have only got a PhD about identity politics which I wrote with one of the foremost scholars in race studies, and I have only taught several postgraduate and undergraduate modules at traditional universities on equalities, and I only have twenty years expertise researching hard to reach groups from minority religious faith, ethnic and sexuality communities, and just an armful of academic and public policy publications on equalities and diversity, including the key study on education and equalities in Wales.



It's so far-fetched that it has quite cheered me up! I always knew the reason would be something stupid, but I wouldn't be able to do anything about it because that's the procedure. You can complain but the university will not alter a manager's decision. I was just waiting to get the feedback so I could move on to see if I have a case against the w*nker for discrimination, and acksherly, I think accusing an ethnic minority bisexual woman who is a well-known expert in the field of not answering a white man properly about equalities issues might even do it on its own!

 

[Sammael Bard]

Blurt!